Microsoft Office Live Workspace Opens Beta Testing Globally

{Qujia Report} Microsoft announced that its online document storage and sharing service, Office Live Workspace (http://workspace.officelive.com), is now open for Beta testing globally. The service began closed internal testing at the end of last October.

Any user can log into Office Live Workspace with their Windows Live ID account to organize, manage documents, materials, and plans online. They can also access it from any computer connected to the Internet at any time. The service provides 500MB of storage space (250MB during the internal testing phase), which can store more than 1000 Office documents. Users can access, comment on these documents through a browser or share them with others at any time using Microsoft SharedView software.

Office Live Workspace requires support from browsers such as IE6, Firefox 2.0 or higher versions. It also provides an access plug-in for Office 2003/2007. A plug-in for Office 2008 for Mac is also under development.

In addition, Microsoft has added several new features based on user feedback, including:

1. Activity Panel: The newly added activity panel can quickly display the latest dynamics of a particular Workspace.

2. Email Notifications: Users can choose to receive email notifications to stay informed about changes in the Workspace or documents at any time.

3. Unique Links: You can tag a Workspace or one of its project items as a unique URL link and access it through a browser window.

4. Multiple File Uploads: You can upload multiple files simultaneously by simply dragging and dropping them.

5. Sharing Improvements: New sharing functions include a simpler user interface, automatic completion of email addresses, etc.

Currently, Office Live Workspace is only available in English. Other language versions will be released later this year, and the official version will be launched by the end of the year.